Home, Bitersweet Home
by Phoenix.G.Fawkes
Summary: NEW CHAP!Sequel to ‘November Rain’. Percy. Oliver. Andrew. Three lost young men trying to find meaning to their lives, while leaving the past behind. One apartment. Home, bittersweet home.
1. Part One: Multicolor Walls

**Disclaimer:** You think that if if I owned any of this I'd be writing fan fiction? No, people: Queen Joanne owns it all. And King Joss as well, I guess.

**Summary:** Sequel to 'November Rain'. Percy. Oliver. Andrew. Three lost young men trying to find meaning to their lives, while leaving the past behind. One apartment. Home, bittersweet home.

* * *

**Home, bittersweet home**

**Part One: Multicolor Walls** (Part One of Five)

Everyone that knew them agreed on one thing: there wasn't anything more strange than the three of them sharing a flat. And most of the people that knew them had seen things that were beyond strange, not to say supernatural.

But they were right: probably there wasn't in London a trio of roommates that had so little in common like they did. In fact, at first sight no one would have imagined what could connect Percy Weasley, Oliver Wood and Andrew Wells. And the truth was that nothing did... except for their job, their recently forged friendship and the desire to start a new life, getting rid of all the things that attached them to their pasts.

Which, as it could be imagined, had been a huge part of the reason they'd moved in together.

To the newcomer, their flat looked weird. Maybe because it _was_ weird, even though it was the most common (and one of the cheapest) flats in London. Or like Andrew said, _apartment_, in that funny accent of his.

It had a kitchenette, a small bathroom, three minuscule bedrooms and the living room, which was the largest room. Nothing abnormal about it, not particularly original. Until you saw what the living room looked like.

The door was white, and so was that wall, but the same couldn't be said of the other three walls. One of them was red, the other one was yellow and the last one, green. But that was only the beggining of its oddness.

There wasn't a physical division in the room, but one could notice that the room had three different parts, or maybe four.

The first part was the one around the red wall. It was decorated with a poster of an old music band and some odd paintings with cubes, triangles and figures that made no sense at all in an explosion of bright colours. Under the paintings there were some shelves with dusty books, next to a wooden armchair, very classic, with cozy gray cushions. Everything on this side of the room looked second-handed (and probably was), except for a brand-new guitar that glimmered with the light of the Tiffany lamp set on the bookshelves.

These decorations clashed with the ones on the yellow wall, which was covered with pencil sketches and black-and-white photographs that, probably because of the light, seemed to be moving. Some of the photographs had a bit of colour in them: a forest-green flash in the eyes of a girl, a blood-red stain in ther form of a scarf, an endless turquoise sky, a golden glimmer clouring a bunch of daisies. And if someone looked at those photgraphs for a long time, then that person would have sworn that they moved. Which was an absolute non-sense, of course.

There was a black, iron-made coffe-table, which matched the black leather armchair next to it. What didn't match was the lava lamp on it, with all those psychedelic shades bursting inside, neither did the untidy pile of magazines, while the colourful pencils clashed a little bit with a black, old-fashioned camera.

Last but no less important was the green wall. This one was covered by tapestries with Indian drawings on them, as well as bookshelves with ancient-looking books and a small statue that looked like a small Buda, but with less arms. In this zone there were no armchairs or tables, but many kaleidoscopic cushions with more symbolic figures on them, such as elephants and some strange-looking runes.

The center of the room only had a white plastic table with four chairs. That was their neutral zone, and its colour was white, just like the door and the remaining wall. The table and the chairs were the only furniture that had come with the flat, maybe because they were so ugly that the former owner hadn't wanted them. They didn't care that much: the chairs were comfortable enough and, after the explosion of colours that the rest of the room had been turned into, they didn't mind a little bit of white.

The idea of moving in together had come up spontanously. The three of them had been working together for a while and, after seeing each other on a daily basis, became friends. Facing dangerous situations regularly had pulled them closer, but probably the main factors were their loneliness and the fact that they were the only ones of their age that worked there.

Sure, Faith was almost their age, as were many others of the former Sunnydale gang, but compared to them Percy, Oliver and Andrew felt extraordinary young. They were the less experienced ones, they were the naïvest and they were the ones who had yet seen very little of this dangerous world they had been thrown into, with vampires and monsters that came out from school books and fairy tales to haunt them. So no, they didn't feel they belonged with them.

Then there was Wesley, but even though the man was kind enough he wasn't the friendly type, and Giles was far too old, while Robin Wood acted too much like a teacher for them to feel comfortable around him. Hell, talking to him was like being at secondary school all over again. For a good number of reasons, none of them wanted to be reminded of their secondary school years anyway.

As for the girls, some of them were nice enough, but on the whole they were quite scary. Dozens and dozens of teenagers with superpowers and exploding hormones? _Merlin save us, please_. And many of them had developed crushes on Oliver, after he'd put off a little weight, while a couple of them stared too much at Percy and Andrew. Truly terryfing.

Hanging out after work had been a natural thing to do, as none of them had other friends. They went to pubs, drank a little too much, eyed the pretty girls and talked about anything _but_ demons and Dark Arts. Well, Andrew did most of the talking as Percy and Oliver were more of the quiet type, but it didn't matter. After a while, Andrew's babbling became oddly comforting.

In those pubs they also played darts, at what Oliver had defeated them countless times, while Percy preferred pool and Andrew had tried to play poker... with disastrous consequences.

And they got to know each other, and to learn the reasons why the others had ended up where they were now. Which had been what truly bonded them after all.


	2. Part Two: The Red Wall: Percy

**Part Two: The Red Wall** (Part Two of Five)

_**Percy**_

The day Percy had put up the modern paintings on his wall, Oliver had come over to examine them, and soon the shock was evident on his face.

'But Percy', he'd said, staring at the colourful shapes on them, 'these things make no sense at all.'

'I know', he'd merely replied. Oliver'd looked at him in disbelief.

'But you've always hated things that didn't make sense'.

'I know'.

'Then why did you get these?'

Percy's answer couldn't have been more simple, and yet it had been an enigma to his friend.

'To remind me what life's like.'

---

Percy was sick of his flat, and had been for a long time. It had been the first thing he'd got with his first salary as Junior Assistant of the Minister – before that, he'd been living in the cheapest room at the Leaky Cauldron.

He'd chosen an spacious, completely new flat with grey walls and no history. The opposite of The Burrow – and he could lie to everyone else and say he'd chosen it because it was close to Diagon Alley, but deep down he knew that had been the reason he'd rented it. He hadn't wanted anything to remind him of home – the home he'd abandoned, the home that in the last couple of years had felt more like a prison than anything else. For a long time, Percy had been aware that living at The Burrow wouldn't help him in his career. It wasn't... classy.

So when he had the choice, he rented a place that wouldn't relate to The Burrow or anyone of its inhabitants. The problem was, his whole life was related to The Burrow, so soon the flat became the "home" (could anyone call it that?) of a man with no past. Which had been all right for him, at first. He was more interested in his future than in dwelling in the past. He wanted to sever all ties with his previous life. He wanted to start a new one.

As he spent more time at work than he did at home, he'd never bothered to decorate the flat, and he'd only bought the essential furniture. However, he'd never noticed how empty the place was – not until he'd lost his job (his whole life, actually) and Penelope had long ago stopped coming by. Then the nude walls had seemed to close in on him as he lay on bed dwelling in somber thoughts of shattered dreams.

Then, when cockroaches had invaded Andrew's flat and Oliver had admitted he no longer could afford his, Lorne had suggested them to move in together. Even though Percy and the other two men thought Lorne was easily the weirdest thing they'd seen (not only his clothes were strange enough, but he seemed to be perpetuosly cheerful, not to mention that "reading souls" thing which was downright creepy) they thought it wasn't a bad idea. Or maybe they were all just desperate to get a new place.

They had chosen a _Muggle_ flat because of Andrew, but it hadn't been a real problem for any of them: Percy knew a lot about _Muggles_ thanks to his father, and Oliver was a half-blood. They had, though, made some magical modifications to the place – something that had horrified Percy until he'd remembered he no longer worked for the Ministry. And it wasn't like anyone would bother with the illegal enchantment of some _Muggle_ stuff when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was on the loose.

The reason they'd painted the living room with different colours hadn't been originality, but the painful fact they couldn't afford buying more paint so they had to use the bit that was left after painting the bedrooms. They could have left the walls in its original colour, but Percy had something against white, nude walls and the other two had agreed with him. So Andrew had suggested each one of them painted one wall – and so they had done.

Percy's colour choice had surprised even himself, but then he reasoned that there was nothing as different as white than red, and it reminded him a little of Gryffindor's common room, a place where he'd been happy. Which, now he came to think about it, could have been the reason Oliver hadn't wanted that colour: it'd remind him too much of Quiditch robes.

But Percy had been happy at Hogwarts – there his intellingence had been appreciated, and no one had seemed to care that much about his second-handed clothes, not like people had done once he'd got a job at the Ministry. Percy remembered his first year at the International Magical Cooperation Department all too well. People had stared at his clean but far too used robes with a smug expression on their faces, and sometimes he'd heard them whispering "_Oh, but if it's Arthur Weasley's son – the mad _Muggle_-lover. He's got seven children, you know, and they all dress like that..._" Yes, he remembered it too well.

Percy's wall had been painted in a vibrant colour then, covered with bookshelves (because, no matter how much he'd changed, he still loved books) and he'd brought some furniture from his old flat, but only those things (like the armchair or the lamp) that he liked too much to throw away. Then, of course, there was the guitar, which had a story of its own.

The first memory Percy had was the one of his mother singing a lullbaby to him. He didn't remember which song was it, all he remembered was the softness on her voice in his baby ears and how the sweet melody had put him to sleep. When she wasn't shouting, Molly Weasley had a beautiful voice – voice none of her children, not even Ginny, had inherited. Except Percy.

When he was still a young child, he'd tried to imitate his mother's singing and soon he'd discovered that he could calm down the restless twins only with his voice (and for very short periods of time, of course). As he grew older, Percy found out that music was the only entertainment he truly enjoyed apart from his books and he begged his parents for a musical instrument. He'd secretly wanted a guitar or a piano, so it was easy to imagine his disappointment when he received a flute. However, he was a sensible boy so he proceeded to play it with the same enthusiasm he'd sang lullbabies before.

His parents were delighted with this hobby, and maybe because of that his brothers had begun to mock him, telling him that he sounded like an augurey or something worse, but he didn't care. It was only when he was playing an instrument or singing when he forgot all about books and responsabilities.

When he began to have more responsabilities at Hogwarts, though, he'd put aside his flute and after a while he'd stopped playing altogether. Suddenly, getting good grades and becoming a prefect had become much more vital than music.

Many years later, he was walking around Diagon Alley when he saw it. A wonderful, brand-new guitar... the kind of thing he'd always dreamed with. Back then, however, he'd never had the money to buy one of those – but now, with the money Fudge was paying him, he could easily buy two of them. In the spur of the moment he decided to buy it (something very, very unusual) and soon that guitar became his company when Penelope dumped him and he had no work to do at home.

Naturally he'd brought the guitar with him when he'd moved in with Oliver and Andrew. It was the only thing he'd bought with Fudge's money that he felt truly valuable, the only thing from that period of his life he thought it was worthy keeping.

He'd played the guitar for Andrew's and Oliver's entertainment, before they got a radio (and after that too), and soon it became common knowledge at Slayers' School that Percy Weasley was an awesome (according to Andrew, not him) guitar player. One day, Lorne had asked him to play the guitar for him. Feeling terribly self-conscious, Percy'd done so. When he'd finished, Lorne had his eyes closed.

'You're pretty good at this, Carrot's Head. Maybe you should play the guitar somewhere else.'

And that was why he was here now, at a karaoke bar near Diagon Alley which hosted both wizards and demons, playing the guitar. It wasn't the first time he came here. Actually, it became some kind of a weekly ritual walking onto the stage and playing old songs of The Hobgoblins, a popular band of the seventies. When he was playing, he could forget all his worries – he forgot about the boggarts plague that had almost killed them all (why couldn't the slayers-in-training be afraid of rats like normal girls? No, they had to be afraid of hideous monsters and other killer machines), he forgot about all the _Muggles_ He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had killed that day according to the Daily Prophet, he forgot about his family, who wouldn't talk to him yet, he forgot about what a mess he was. In short, he could forget everything for some minutes without needing firewhisky and that was much more than he had had some months ago.

'I like how you play'.

Percy started and turned round to face the owner of that low voice. Standing in front of him there was a young woman, a couple of years older than him. The first thing he noticed about her was her hair, which was dyed in a bright blue that matched her eyes. The second thing he noticed were her clothes – psychodelic coloured robes artistically ripped, like the ones the Weird Sisters used to wear. The third thing he noticed was that she was quite stunning.

'Er... thank you', he mumbled, feeling like an idiot. Her lips curved slightly, as she eyed him carefully.

'Have you ever played in a band?'

Percy blinked, surprised. 'No, I haven't'.

Her blue eyes stared at him thoughtfully.

'Well, maybe you'd like to join one. Here, this is where we rehearse.' She handed him a piece of parchment and, before he could react, turned to leave.

'Wait!' He exclaimed, jumping from his seat. She stopped and turned to face him. 'You haven't even told me your name'.

She raised an eyebrow and shot him a quizzical look, as if he'd asked something extremely odd.

'It's Naoise. Naoise Donnovan'.

'I'm Percy, Percy Weasley'.

She gave him an electrical smile. 'Nice to meet you, Percy'.

And without further explanation, she disappeared into the night.

---

'So, how did it go at the pub?', Oliver asked, once he'd returned home.

Percy shrugged, trying to look indifferent.

'A girl asked me to join a band'.

His friend looked up from the magazine he'd been reading. 'Really?' Then he eyed Percy's expression carefully. 'Was she pretty?'

Feeling himself blushing, Percy nodded. Oliver looked like he was repressing a laugh.

'Are you going to give it a try, then?'

Percy shifted, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable. 'I don't know. She's a complete stranger, and these aren't good times to trust a complete stranger'.

This time Oliver didn't repress the urge to laugh.

'Oh, Percy! It's not like a Death Eater would go to a karaoke bar to recruit guitar players who only know songs that are deader than the Chudley Cannons!'

Percy tried to look offended. 'Hey, you never know. Besides, The Hobgoblins' songs aren't that dead. They're still popular'.

Oliver rolled his eyes, like saying "Yeah, sure".

'So, are you going to give it a try?'

Percy shrugged.

'Why not? It can be fun'.

His friend eyed him, pensive. 'I never thought I'd hear you saying that'.

Percy let out a faint sigh. 'Neither did I', he admitted, but suddenly his attention was caught by something behind Oliver, who noticed this and turned round to follow his gaze.

'Do you remember, the day we moved in, what you asked me when I put those paintings on the wall?'

Oliver nodded, looking at the modern paintings. 'Yeah. I asked you why you'd bought them, when they didn't make sense at all.And you answered that they reminded what life was like, but I never got what you'd meant.'

Percy sighed.

'I'm not sure what I meant back then, but I know what it means now.' Oliver looked at him expectantly and he continued.

'There was a time when I hated things like those paints. They weren't traditional, they weren't structured, they didn't make sense. They went against everything I stood for. And then... then I lost everything, and things stopped making sense. I was lost, trying to find a meaning to what had happened. Now, however', He paused, lost in past memories, 'I'm not sure it it has a meaning at all. Now I think that maybe... maybe life is like those paintings. Maybe things don't always have to make sense. Maybe life's just a senseless explosion of colour, without rules, without structure. And maybe it's better that way.'

Oliver stared at him, his eyebrow raised.

'Blimey, you've gone all phylosophical on me now.'

But this time, in spite of his mocking tone, Percy was sure his friend had understood what he'd meant.


	3. Part Three: The Yellow Wall: Oliver

**Part Three: The Yellow Wall** (Part Three of Five)

_**Oliver** _

Oliver Wood had never had a hobby. It might sound strange, but it was true: he'd never had a hobby.

Quidditch couldn't be considered as a hobby. It had been his obsession, his reason to wake up every morning, his job, his dream, but it had never been a hobby. He'd always taken it too seriously to consider it a hobby.

His father had always laughed at him when he'd heard Oliver talking about a lost match like it was the end of the world. He was a _Muggle_-born, and therefore he'd always preferred the football he'd played as a child to Quidditch. Which his son considered a blasphemy, of course.

As for her mother, she had always smiled politely at Oliver's rants about Quidditch, but he was aware of her lack of interest in the subject. She was a little overweight and she'd never enjoyed sports that much. Instead, she'd preferred taking care of her beloved plants, and more than once he'd wondered whether his mother'd rather spend her time in the garden than with him. When he'd been little, he'd even thought that his mother liked her plants more than she liked him. Now, though, he thought that maybe his mother hadn't spent so much time with him because he hadn't allowed her, always obsessed with Quiditch and all the stuff she'd always secretly hated. Or maybe he'd been a little spoiled, being an only child and all, and his mother hadn't spent more time with her plants than necessary.

The only one person in his family who had fully understood Oliver's obsession had been his Uncle Emery. He owned a shop which sold Quidditch related stuff and even though he'd never been a good player himself he was as obsessed by it as his nephew, or perhaps even more. He'd been the one who'd taken Oliver to Quidditch matches since he was two, he'd been the one who'd bought him his first racing broomstick and the only one who'd been sure he'd be made Quiditch captain at Hogwarts. Yeah, definately his uncle had had a lot to do with his own obsession.

By the time he was eleven, Oliver knew more about Quidditch matches that had taken place a century ago than he did about chocolate frogs cards or anything else an eleven-year-old kid should have known about. However, at first his obsession had gone almost unnoticed: after all, most kids his age were obsessed with Quidditch.

As time went by, though, things changed. Well, _he_ didn´t change, but the people around him did... and he guessed that had been the problem. While he kept obsessing over Quidditch, most boys started to worry about girls, read forbidden magazines or buy alcohol illegally.

Slowly, he became more and more isolated. At the time he didn't notice it. As long as there were Quidditch trainings to plan, strategies to study and matches to play, he didn't feel lonely. Besides, if he wanted to talk to someone about a non-Quidditch related subject, he could always count on Percy, who wasn't that popular either.

And it wasn't like he was a total freak or something. He got along with the other boys, he cared a little about his appearence, and he had dated girls. Quite a lot of them, actually. Sure, his relationships had never been that long – his record at school had been two months – but for him it had been okay. Truth to be told, he'd never noticed how empty his life was – not until he'd lost Qudditch definately. Until then, he'd thought his life was just perfect.

Now, though, when he remembered his school days, Oliver realised he got it wrong. His life had been far from perfect. He had been a lonely boy, without a single true friend in the world. A boy who everyone had considered eccentric and even a little nuts, a boy who had been accused of being obsessive and even cold-hearted because of his lack of interest in the people who surrounded him. Oliver still remembered McGonagall's fury when she saw how little did he care for Harry Potter's welfare as long as they won the match. Back then, he'd thought she was overreacting. Now, he was surprised she hadn't smacked him on the head for his stupidity.

The truth was he'd always seemed to care more about Quidditch than people around him. And that had been how he'd lost Celine.

Celine had been his first serious girlfriend, at least the first one for whom he'd felt something more than lust. He thought he might even had loved her.

She was smart, funny, intense. When he was with her, he forgot about everything else. Even Quidditch. And a couple of times he'd thought about proposing, but he'd been waiting for the right moment. Which never arrived, of course.

Celine hadn't agreed on his illegal use of dragon's eyelids. She'd told him he was nuts, and that he ought to see a real Healer immeadiately. He had ignored her. After a while, she got mad enough to give him an ultimatum. He hadn't listened. She left. And he was more heartbroken than he would have liked to admit.

When he moved in with Percy and Andrew, he'd thrown away many of his old stuff, including old Quidditch magazines, photographs (all the ones Celine was in, at least) and many letters, including the three Angelina Jordan had written to him over the last year. The first one, when she'd been made captain, to tell him the news and also to ask for some advice. The second one, which arrived when his career was finally getting started, when Potter and the Weasley twins had been banned from the team. For some reason, she'd felt he was the only one who'd understand her desperation. And the third one, telling him Gryffindor had won the Cup, arrived at the beggining of his downfall.

He'd answered the three of them... but when his own Quidditch career was over, he couldn't stand reading them again, so they were thrown away unceremoniously, along with all the congratulations cards he'd received when he became famous and the few articles from the Daily Prophet where his name had been mentioned.

It brought him some peace, but after a while he'd begun missing Celine's pictures. One night, he was surprised to find himself trying to draw her face. And he was even more surprised when he realised the drawing was quite good. Almost as good as a real picture.

Almost.

Percy, and especially Andrew, had admired his work, and Oliver realised that he felt more at ease when he had his hands occupied with a pencil. Then his parents had got him a camera for his birthday (if Celine had remembered it, she hadn't bothered sending a greeting card) and he found out that taking pictures could be as gratifying as drawing. At least he got something to do while Percy was busy with his music and Andrew was busy with only Merlin-knew-what. And after a while, other people at Slayer's School had appreciated his work, and some had even suggested to pay him for some of his pictures.

At first he'd thought they were mad, especially when Percy suggested taking his work to the Daily Prophet or some magical magazine. And his shock did nothing but grow when more than one of those magazines accepted to publish his pictures and sketches, _and to pay him for that!_

Andrew and Percy insisted on celebreting the good news, so they were now at their favourite pub, savouring their beers and watching the darts contest between Wesley and Faith. Her boyfriend watched the scene form a near table he was sharing with Giles and Lorne, whereas some of the Slayer girls had chosen to sit in the bar, next to the three of them. One of them (was Vicky her name?) was flirting with Percy, and Oliver had to refrain a smirk. It seemed that his not-so-social friend was turning into a ladies' man.

'A Guinness pint, please'.

Oliver turned round to see who'd talked, and took a sharp inhale of breath when he saw a gorgeous girl sitting next to him. Ok, he was still pinning over Celine, but...

'Do you mind if I pay it for you?'

She smiled, and Oliver's heart skipped a beat.

A day later, while Percy and Andrew kept asking about his night with Linda (that was the girl's name), Oliver reflected that perhaps things weren't so bad after all. It was true that his life wasn't as great as he'd once imagined it would be, and it was true that Linda couldn't erase Celine from his mind, as it was also true that his dream of a lifetime had been shattered, but it was also true he now had other stuff.

He might no longer have fans like when he was famous, but he had real friends like Andrew and Percy, who didn't mind whether he'd screwed up his life or not. He didn't have a girlfriend, but he had the chance to meet new people, people who didn't necessarily now about his mistakes. He didn't have the job of his dreams, but he had a job that let him make a difference in this war.

He no longer had his obsession, but for the first time in his life he had a hobby, which might turn him famous or not. And for the first time in his life, he didn't care about it either.

For the first time in his life, he wasn't obsessed with succeding... and felt quite happy with what he had at hand.

For the first time in his life, he felt happy without Qudditch. For the first time in his life, he felt human.


	4. Part Four: The Green Wall: Andrew

**Part Four: The Green Wall** (Part Four of Five)

_**Andrew**_

When the three of them decided to move in together, they'd made an oath: to leave their pasts behind.

The whole oath thing had been Andrew's idea, of course. He still had a thing for solemn oaths and secret societies, like the Trio he'd formed with Warren and Jonathan. Although he hoped this new trio would turn out much better than the last one.

Percy burnt many of his reports and throw away some of his books (including one that was named _Prefects that Gained Power_ or something dull like that), Oliver did the same with his Kerditch magazines (was it Kerditch? He never remembered) and Andrew burnt all his comics. Every. Single. One. And he hadn't stopped there: he'd also thrown away his Xena's action figures, all Stark Trek posters and even his videocamera. This time, he'd decided to throw all his past away.

He just kept his demonology books, because they were still useful, and some photographs. Some were from his childhood with his older brother Tucker, some were with the whole Trio and one of them was taken in Mexico, with Jonathan.

He didn't keep them for sentimental reasons, but to remind him of certain things. Certain things he'd done wrong in his life, certain mistakes he didn't want to repeat ever again.

As he looked at the unframed pictures, he couldn't stop the flood of memories that came to his mind, in spite of the oath to leave the past behind.

He let it happen. Maybe he needed to dwell in past memories for one last time, before finally burying his past once for all.

---

Andrew never had many friends, not even when he was in elementary school. He'd always been a geek. However, he'd never minded, as his older brother Tucker was always there for him.

Andrew had practically worshipped his older brother, who was quite geek-y himself, but in his eyes he was perfect. Tucker had always been braver than he was (the way he dressed was enough proof of that) and way more manly, and he didn't babble like an idiot, well, at least not as much as Andrew did. In short, he was his little brother's hero. Especially when their father left them, and Tucker became the only one person Andrew could count on, as their mother was always too busy gossiping with her friends to take care of them.

But all the bad stuff that happened to them during those years had turned Tucker into a bitter and scornful man, and when Gracie, his great crush from high school, rejected his invitation to the Prom, he exploded. Well, exploded wasn't a good way to describe it. He just shut it all inside, but Andrew could tell there was something wrong, very wrong with his brother.

He began to spend all his spare time in the basement, reading dusty books about demons (at first, Andrew had thought Tucker had gone completely mad if he was believing such things existed) and wouldn't talk to anyone, except Andrew. But he wouldn't tell him what was going on, so it was as good as nothing.

And then, a year later, he'd made his move, trying to take revenge on Sunnydale's students at the Prom. Andrew knew about this because Tucker had told him all about it, and all about the Slayer, the girl who'd stopped him. At the time, Andrew hadn't seen the seriousness of the situation. He'd just thought that his brother had meant to scare the students. Now he knew better.

Fortunately, Tucker forgot all about his revenge when he met a new girl that didn't reject him, and after a while they'd moved to Chicago together. As far as Andrew knew, Tucker was still dating that girl. He felt happy for his brother now, even though at the time he'd seen the whole thing as a tragedy. He didn't know how to live without his brother. He had always depended on other people to tell him what to do, what to think. At first, it had been his father, then Tucker. And then he was on his own (he couldn't count on his mother, who'd married again and moved to San Francisco), and it scared the hell out of him.

After feeling lost for many months, he had met Warren. And his life had changed.

Warren lacked of many qualities that would have helped him to become popular, but he knew how to fascinate people. Or at least, he fascinated Andrew, and Jonathan was dragged because of his own loneliness.

For the first time in his life, Andrew felt like he belonged. He'd finally met people like him. Later on he'd find out they weren't like him at all: Jonathan was a much better person than Andrew would ever be, and Warren... Warren was more a tyrant than a friend, even though it took him ages to realise that.

When Warren had started talking about turning into villains and make the Slayer's life a living hell, Andrew had been all for it, not just because he wanted revenge for his brother, but because he felt he'd finally found his place. All his life he'd read comics and dreamed to become a hero, just to find out he was nothing but a loser. Then, though, he thought that if he couldn't be a hero, at least he could try to be a villain. Besides, following Warren's lead was much easier than trying to think on his own.

Then things had got... complicated. Jonathan began having second thoughts, Katrina died after showing them the error of their ways, they had been arrested, and Warren had betrayed them. Not to mention the whole Evil Willow episode.

After Warren's death, Andrew had to find someone else to follow. And he followed Jonathan, whose guilt had given him a purpouse. But Andrew hadn't shared that guilt. There was still a part of him that thought they hadn't done anything wrong. So when the First had begun to show up in his dreams in Warren's form, he'd switched sides and followed Warren again.

Jonathan's death was a painful subject, even after all this time. That was something he'd never get over in his life. And he wouldn't try to. He owed Jonathan that much.

In the afternath of Jonathan's death and the discovery that Warren wasn't real, he had a new leader: Buffy. But Buffy, although she was extraordinary, was still a girl, and he couldn't imitate a girl. So he chose Spike as his new role model.

Andrew had once overheard Xander saying that he had a crush on Spike, like the one he'd had on Warren. Andrew had silently laughed. In spite of what most people believed, Andrew had never been gay. He'd never been manly, but he'd always been attracted to girls, never boys. What he had felt for Warren (and later on, Spike) had been the same he felt for his brother Tucker as a child: reverence. He worshipped them, but he didn't lust after them. There was a hell of a difference.

Dawn had been the only one who'd seen this. Andrew smiled sadly when he remembered the girl. He'd developed a small crush on her, a crush she never knew about as he'd realised she was far too good for him. Besides, Andrew suspected the former Key had some feelings for the mysterious Miracle Child, son of two vampires, and that had been the reason she'd decided to finish high school in LA while her sister travelled around the world with Spike (did anyone stay dead in Sunnydale?) searching for new Slayers. He shook his head. It was better this way.

Or at least that was what he told himself.

Now, though, he was left with no one to worship. Oh, yes, there were people he admired, like Wesley or Faith, or even Percy and Oliver, who had all these cool powers, but he didn't worship them. And he didn't want to.

It surprised him, but this time he didn't want to have another role model. He'd had enough of them, and it hadn't turned out that well.

'Maybe this time I should try just to be myself', he muttered to Jonathan's picture before putting it away.

Something told him that it would be harder than it sounded.

He smiled. He felt ready for the challenge.

As for the comics, he didn't miss them too much. He'd found out that real life could be much more interesting.


	5. Epilogue or Part Five: The White Wall: L...

**Epilogue**

_Or_

**Part Five: The White Wall** (Part Five of Five)

_**Lorne**_

Wesley had just beaten Faith at darts and she could barely hide her fury. Sensing this, Robin rose from his chair and hastened to calm her down, whereas Wesley slid down the vacant seat with a poorly conceived smirk on his face.

Giles congratulated Wesley on his victory, though he warned him that a mad Faith was never a good thing, but Lorne wasn't paying attention to them. He was looking at the bar, where their newest Golden Trio was sitting.

The three of them intrigued Lorne. They couldn't be more different from each other, and he couldn't imagine three people less likely to become friends (except for Faith and Wesley, who amazingly enough had became closer than anyone expected). He could see nothing that connected them.

However, when he'd read them (without them noticing, of course) he'd found out something funny: their fates seemed to be linked. He hadn't got to see what lay ahead for them, but he'd known (the same way he always knew things when he read somebody) that whatever happened to one of them would affect the other two strongly.

Those three where destined for something big, something that he couldn't see yet, but definately something big. Especially Carrot's Head.

However, right now the three young men were just laughing together at the bar, enjoying their friendship, like they had no care in the world. And maybe they hadn't, at least for that night.

Their fate would catch on with them... but for now, they were just three friends enjoying each others company, each one of them filling the needs the others had, each one of them just trying to give their best.

And for now, that was more than enough.


End file.
